Egyptian prosecutors summon reporters over election coverage

Those arrested are likely to show up for questioning next Thursday. AFP

• Egyptian military prosecutors referred the country’s former top auditor to a military court
• Egypt under El-Sisi has waged a massive crackdown on dissent since the 2013 overthrow of President Muhammad Mursi

CAIRO: Egypt’s state security prosecutors have summoned nine journalists for questioning over their coverage of last month’s presidential election, a senior official of the country’s press syndicate said Friday.
The summons is for the recently-dismissed chief editor of the Al-Masry Al-Youm daily and eight other reporters, according to Hatem Zakaria.
The nine are expected to show up for questioning next Thursday, said Zakaria, the syndicate’s secretary-general.
Al-Masry Al-Youm was fined 150,000 Egyptian pounds (about $8,500) and its chief editor Mohammed El-Sayyed Saleh was dismissed after a report saying the state rallied voters to participate in the presidential election by using rewards.
Saleh was also referred for questioning. In the March balloting, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi was re-elected for a second term, getting 97 percent of the vote.
About a month before the election, authorities expelled British journalist Bel Trew after arresting her and threatening her with a military trial.
Separately, state media reported on Thursday that Egyptian military prosecutors referred the country’s former top auditor to a military court over statements deemed insulting to the armed forces.
Hesham Genena was arrested in February after claiming on television that former military chief of staff Sami Annan, whom he was advising in a presidential bid, was in possession of documents incriminating the country’s leadership. Annan’s lawyer later criticized Genena’s statements as “untrue” and said they shouldn’t be attributed to his client.
Genena will stand trial on April 16, his lawyer Ali Taha said on Facebook.
The military had arrested Annan in January. Shortly after Annan’s arrest, unidentified men attacked and severely injured Genena outside his home in a Cairo suburb.
Genena, who led the state’s Central Auditing Organization, was dismissed by El-Sisi in 2016 following an investigation that concluded he had misled the public on the size of government corruption. Genena said corruption had cost the country billions of dollars in 2015 alone. He later said he was misquoted.
Egypt under El-Sisi has waged a massive crackdown on dissent since the 2013 overthrow of President Muhammad Mursi after mass protests against his one year divisive rule.